Wrong Time of Year
by Loads of Randomness
Summary: Where Reid tries to persuade Garica that mistletoe really shouldn't be used as a decoration in February, Morgan and Prentiss briefly get concerned about possible illegal activities and somehow Spencer and Emily have their first kiss.


**AN: I can't leave these two well enough alone! This was meant to be a fluffy piece about Emily and Spencer's first kiss being on the cliché day of Valentine's Day of all days but somehow Garcia took over. Enjoy and review!**

"It's the wrong time of year!"

They heard Reid's complaining voice before they saw him. Emily exchanged an amused look with Morgan. What was he complaining about this time? Emily swore if she heard _one more_ complaint about how bulbs were allegedly "shocked" into growing she was going to scream. All she had done was admire the daffodils. She liked daffodils!

"Who's he complaining to?" Morgan asked her.

Emily shrugged her shoulders in response. She couldn't see their genius or whoever he was with. She felt a bit sorry for the other person however. Reid did tend to go on a bit when he was using that particular tone. Morgan glanced around the office and shrugged as well when he didn't see anything. They'd find out when Reid eventually turned up. It sounded like he was near the break area anyway, no need to interrupt him and his coffee. Emily grabbed a piece of paperwork; it was for a consult shed just finished. Morgan did the same. Or maybe it was that report that Hotch was chasing him up over.

"It's not even culturally appropriate."

That made them both raise their eyebrows. It sounded like Reid was returning. What on earth was their genius boy talking about and with _who_?

Emily was debating on whether or not she _really_ wanted to know what was going on - she was still faintly scarred by the symbolism and use of traditions by that Native American tribe whose land they had to be on for their last case. It had been just _a bit_ freaky and she didn't really need to know about it. Then she heard what he said next, after the person he was talking to mumbling a response of some sort.

"Where did you even get it?"

Emily was sure that Morgan's vaguely alarmed expression was reflected on her own face. All of her instincts were saying to either flee to JJ's office or inform Hotch. _But_ she was also really curious. Which is why she stayed put. And she was glad she did because two of her favourite people came around the corner. Emily had to admit, she was a little surprised that it was Garcia Spencer was arguing with, he got on with her best after JJ. Though she probably shouldn't have been _that_ surprised. Their nerdy discussions took on a life of their own half of the time. She was pretty sure that the heads of everyone in the Unit were still reeling after their in-depth analysis and discussion about how feasible Dr Who's abilities were.

Morgan's expression had shifted from alarmed to amused. He obviously thought that these two couldn't get themselves into too much trouble in spite of the vaguely alarming comments they had overheard. So, Emily decided to relax as well. Conveniently ignoring the fact that between both of their combined geniuses (genius? Genii?) they could probably take on the entire world. They certainly had enough passion between the two of them to power such an endeavour. Surely, whatever they had managed to do it was nothing she and Morgan couldn't handle anyway.

"Hey," Emily greeted, looking down at her paperwork, she had yet to read a full paragraph yet.

"Oh my gosh, hi!" Garcia returned, practically bouncing over to her desk and dumping a plastic bag on top of her paperwork.

"What the?"

"Tell Spencer that he is _wrong_," their colourful friend demanded, the ends of her hair bobbles swinging.

"I am not!" Reid denied vehemently.

He stopped short of calling Garcia wrong Emily noted. Wise move. That never ended well for anyone.

"You are!"

"I'm not. Look, there are clear traditions and-"

"You're still wrong!"

"Do either of you want to read us into this?" Emily asked, indicating to her and Morgan, who had an eyebrow raised and was very poorly concealing his amusement.

Garcia's face brightened and Reid went wide-eyed as he shook his head.

"Yes!"

"No!"

Oh, now she definitely wanted to know. Well, she did before but that was because she was curious. Now it was because it was an opportunity to wind Reid up and hopefully get him all flustered. Why she wanted to get him all flustered was a thought that Emily was actively trying not to pursue.

Morgan finally left his desk and came over to hers where all the excitement was apparently happening. He peered over Reid's shoulder and tried to lift the plastic bag to see what was in it. His hand was slapped away by Garcia.

"Hey!" Morgan complained, holding his hand close to him.

"No peaking until you say I'm right," Garcia declared.

"Surely we need to see it to make that decision?"

Garcia folded her arms and put a stubborn look on her face. "No."

Emily took advantage of her distraction to open the bag for herself. Huh. That was not what she was expecting.

"Is this mistletoe?" she queried, opening the bag wider.

A colourfully decorated hand slammed down in an attempt to close it again but Emily was too quick, twisting the bag out of the way.

"Maybe."

"Did you forget to put some Christmas decorations away or something?" Morgan asked.

That was a very real possibility. Garcia had certainly had a lot of decorations for the small space she was restricted to. It wouldn't be unreasonable for some things to go awry.

"No, it's for Valentine's Day!" Garcia announced, pigtails bobbing in excitement.

All three agents stared blankly at her. Well, two of them did. Reid just looked exasperated. Emily cursed inwardly; she had completely forgotten about today. How, she didn't know, what with the rampant consumerism everywhere blaring it out at her from every ship front. Not that it mattered. Valentine's Day was a day for couples. Which she was not one half of this year. Nope. Just a whole, single woman. Honestly, she didn't really mind. She enjoyed Valentine's Day when she had someone to celebrate it with and ignored it when she didn't, no hard feelings. She wasn't going to go looking for some failed romance just because of a holiday anyway.

"Mistletoe is for Christmas or Yule," Reid argued.

"It's _Valentine's_ mistletoe," Garcia stressed.

"Not that I'm not on your side, Baby Girl, but how do you have 'Valentine's mistletoe'?" Morgan asked hesitantly.

"It has hearts on it," she replied matter-of-factly, shaking sprigs of said plants at him.

And, wouldn't you know, each sprig had a pair of paper hearts attached to it. One red and one pink.

"How long did it take you to-?" Emily started to ask.

"That doesn't make it for Valentine's day!" Reid complained.

Emily had to wonder, for a man who had spent this many years working with one Penelope Garcia why he thought he would win an argument like this. If Garcia was going to decorate for the holidays then, by God, she was going to decorate for the holidays. Even the higher-ups knew that and let her be.

"Don't you dare spoil my fun, Spencer Reid!" Garcia warned him.

He nodded meekly at the colourful woman, not that a refusal would have _stopped_ her. Emily hid her grin but Morgan did no such thing. He slung his arm around his tall, skinny friend and grinned.

"At least this way you're guaranteed some lovin' for the holiday," he told Reid cheerfully.

Reid looked highly sceptical of that fact. Emily didn't want to dwell on the fact that her immediate thought was the fact that Reid obviously wasn't doing anything for Valentine's day and the fact she was _glad_ about it. That was so mean! She squashed that thought down quickly and hoped no one had noticed.

Reid was looking at her a bit oddly, which wasn't good at all, so she shot him a grin. Which looked like it didn't really help matters but _anyway_. She wasn't going to explain herself. Nope. She didn't have to. He was still giving her an inquisitive look. Drat it.

"People won't pay any attention to it because it's not Christmas," Reid tried, as he still kept his eyes on Emily.

"Tough nougies," Garcia said quite firmly. "You all know now so if you get caught under this mistletoe, same rules apply as at Christmas. No getting out without a kiss."

"That's how mistletoe works," Emily repeated, restraining her automatic eye roll.

Yep, she definitely wasn't a fan of the stuff. It was messy and silly and you shouldn't need a stupid plant in order to kiss someone. If you wanted to kiss someone, you kissed them. If you didn't, you didn't and strongly discouraged anyone you didn't want to basically assault you from doing so. Easy-peasy.

"You wouldn't be such a downer on it if you had succeeded in getting Reid under it last Christmas," a voice in her head taunted her.

She ignored it. As usual. Okay, she had been a bit jealous of the fact that Tamara from Anderson's team had managed to snag a kiss from Reid when no one else on the team had. He was unerringly good at dodging the stuff.

As if she was reading Emily's thoughts, Garcia reached up to wave one above Reid's head.

"You're owed some of this from Christmas," she informed him.

He frowned at her, lip coming up into that irresistible pout of his.

"That's not how you do it."

He then tried to step away but was only scolded.

"Not without a kiss!" Garcia insisted.

"It's not even over anyone else," Reid complained, a faint blush rising from the collar of his shirt.

Emily couldn't help but be intrigued at what he was going to do. Though he was probably going to go down the cop-out route and kiss someone one the che-

Suddenly Reid was in her face and he was _kissing_ her. Like, properly kissing her on the lips and everything. His lips felt nice. As soon as it started, it stopped. She frowned in disapproval. She hadn't wanted it to stop. Emily was having a bit of trouble voicing said disapproval due to the fact that she was feeling a bit dazed. Reid had actually managed to shock her into silence. With a _kiss_. Reid. Spencer Reid. Had kissed her. _Her_.

She had _not_ seen that coming. Oh sure, she had daydreamed about kissing him, what it would be like, how it would feel. Who wouldn't when the guy had those full lips that were so, so expressive? Sometimes she couldn't help but watch them and _of course_ there were time that she'd wanted to kiss him senseless - especially when he managed to make sense of a convoluted piece of evidence. Actually, she wanted to kiss him far more often than that. She just had never acted on it. Hell, Emily hadn't even known that he had a thing for her. Since when did he have a thing for her?

Sure, he blushed sometimes but he did that around a lot of woman, though she couldn't remember the last time he had outside of their team, and yeah, he got flustered and tongue-tied around her and he sometimes stood a little too close. Then there were the times were he always sought her out first when he learnt something new which he thought she would find interesting (which was surprisingly often) and - oh my God, he had a thing for her. How did she not notice this?

"Because you were too busy thinking you were pining over him," she scolded herself.

Emily mentally gave that particular inner voice a good shove. It was far too blunt sometimes.

"Did you just _kiss_ me?" she managed to get out when her tongue was working again.

"Had to follow the rules," he mumbled, looking away from her but not before she caught the blush on his cheeks.

Emily licked her lips, feeling the heat in her own cheeks. She rather liked that. His blush and the kiss. It had to happen again.

A stricken look came over him, big, brown eyes going impossibly wide and forehead creasing quite dramatically.

"Was I not supposed to?" he asked in a panicked tone.

Emily frowned thoughtfully as if she was giving her answer some serious consideration and pretending that her heart _wasn't_ fluttering like a thousand butterflies. She looked pointedly and the beribboned mistletoe, paper hearts waving merrily.

"I don't know." she answered quite decisively, watching his face fall. "But, could you do it again?"

"Maybe with some tongue this time," Morgan suggested.

The two of them jumped apart, forgetting that they were in the bull pen.

"Shut up," Prentiss snapped half-heartedly.

Morgan raised his hands defensively but had a smirk on his face.

"I'm just saying. It would have made it a lot better for all of us. Need a bit of action here."

He got two sets of incredibly rude gestures for his efforts. Emily didn't know Reid's fingers could bend that way.


End file.
